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02/01/2004 Archived Entry: "Vitello nails it."
Vitello nails it.
Thanks to B3 reader Xan, I was led to this op-ed by Newsday's Paul Vitello. He asks a very important question - if Clinton's lie was enough to bring the US government to a virtual halt for two years, why is there no similar outrage over a lie that has killed thousands of people?
Who can forget the virtual earthquake in Washington - the culture war, the shaking of our civil foundations, the End Time raptures of Pat Robertson and Tom DeLay - over the Monica Lewinsky lie?Even from way out here on the edge of the republic, you could feel official Washington tremble and sway as it learned that President Bill Clinton had had an affair with that woman - and that he had lied about it.
The capital fell into chaos, you remember. Through 1998 and most of 1999 (two years during which Osama bin Laden was laying plans for us, as it turned out) the work of the Congress and the president stopped dead while a Republican posse demanded Clinton's job.
They did so, they said, not just because he had committed adultery but because he had lied about it to the people and because presidential lying represented a kind of cancer that threatened the moral health of the nation. The idea was that if a president lied, everything might start to unravel in concentric circles of Evil. They invoked Biblical absolutes and near-absolutes such as the sanctity of truth, the rule of law, the responsibilities of power.
DeLay, then-House Republican whip, said that unless President Clinton was impeached for lying, somewhere someday a mother would "lose custody of her baby in court because a father lies," and professors would sell good grades for cash, and brave men would die due to lies in the military, and businesses would collapse from "a cancer" of lying throughout the land. You can look this up in the congressional record. DeLay may even have had a point.
But I bring this up not to remind you of that sad episode in the country's moral life, and in the marriage of the Clintons. I mention it only to ask - honestly, because I am as curious as any other increasingly anti-war American with grave doubts about the truthfulness of my government in its pursuit of foreign (and domestic) policies - why there was no earthquake in Washington this week when it emerged that President George W. Bush may have launched an entire war on the basis of a lie?
Replies: 8 people speak up
What drives me very nearly over the edge about all of this "he lied!" activity is that it never (and I mean absolutely NEVER) refers to the fact that so many of us said he was lieing well before the war. We were laughed at, ridiculed and even threatened with death (yes Ann Coulter, I remember) for pointing out the obvious and yet, noone to my knowledge has apologized for pushing a war that killed tens of thousands of innocents. Hell, even the poor (and they were poor in so many ways) Iraqi soldiers that valiently defended their country- which was being attacked purely on the basis of lies-were innocent victims of Corporate idealouges and pro-Zion cliques in Washington and London.
Even now they refuse to take the consequences of their actions onto their shoulders, choosing to put the blame on the CIA. This is how they survived in their cozy niches from the Reagan administration until this very day: They fart and then roll their eyes and point to the guy standing next to them. These monsters should be picked out of their posts like grubs from a log, and exposed to the cleansing sunlight and long, long stays at the gitmo hotel 6, without lawyers, without contact from anyone, separated from friends and family and locked into the grimmest gulag we could invent. These malevolent clowns have nearly destroyed our democracy and they've left a stain on the fabric of our flag that will resist years of scrubbing, never truly leaving, always reminding us of the shit they'd wiped our banner with...
And still.........no apology.
Posted by Thurber Hamm @ 02/01/2004 05:10 PM NY
Duh, Clinton lied about blow jobs not about policy and government, the unimportant stuff.
Posted by salvage @ 02/01/2004 05:11 PM NY
Thurber,
Outstanding.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 02/01/2004 07:19 PM NY
FWIW, I just emailed the link to Mr. Vitello's piece to my congressman (NY-R). Do you think he might read it?
...me neither.
Posted by DaveH. @ 02/01/2004 08:34 PM NY
Because they're partisan demagogues who aren't concerned with what's right, just with what they can get away with. Hence the phony hysteria and anger everytime one of their own is insulted or impugned in some way. I thought that would be obvious to anyone who looked, I guess some people are just too stupid, too dumb, or to naive to know the truth.
Posted by Stentor @ 02/02/2004 12:08 AM NY
Good Point Thurber Hamm, and the ironic part is that they consider themselves the true Americans. Not people who are interested in the truth, but only people interested in power, like Tom Delay. I was talking with Martin Sheen at a political event, and I told him that Bush reminded me of the character that Sheen portrayed in the movie, The Dead Zone. He rolled his eyes, laughed, and said, "That's why we've got to get him out of office."
Posted by Stentor @ 02/02/2004 12:12 AM NY
To me, it's simple. Republicans will say and do absolutely anything to gain power. And, they consistently put party before country in that pursuit.
Lewinsky was a blessing bestowed by Clinton (got to be fair about that - it was REALLY stupid!)and the Republicans pounced on it as the excuse for justifying six years of non-stop investigations.
To me, Iraq is the same "faith based" policy. They believed that if they investigated enough, they would get Clinton. They believed if they invaded, they would find WMDs.
Same crap - different day!
Posted by Mark-NC @ 02/02/2004 12:23 AM NY
Who [well an idiot would] could disgree with any of the comments ? These shallow people said when Clinton tried to kill bin Laden that he was trying to distract from impeachment. These same people now say Clinton did nothing to try to get bin Laden. When you have a corrupt media that allows the discourse to continue at this level, as Bob Somerby says at http://www.dailyhowler.com, that something terrible is awaiting us right around the corner. The media was talking about shark bites and Condit on 8-11-2001 while Bush vacationed and you know what happened on 9-11-2001. Democrats feared Newt Gingrinch as Republican Majority Leader but Tom Delay is the worst threat to this country as far as I am concerned. It makes me think just what type of people who live in Sugarland, Texas and the surrounding area that show up every 2 years to send this empty suit weak bully back to Washington.
Posted by gammarock @ 02/02/2004 09:18 AM NY
